1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to vehicle driver assistance systems and more particularly to a method and system for assisting a vehicle driver during driving maneuvers using a human machine interface.
2. Description of the Background Art
The driving maneuver of merging onto freeways and highways in the United States is a fairly difficult and stressful task. Many decisions must be made by the driver in a relatively small time window to estimate an appropriate speed and gap between the vehicles on the road to merge safely onto a freeway or highway. Additionally, the on-ramp size in most areas is not sufficient and further reduces the time for decision making.
Even though the amount of accidents is not as high as on other road segments, the severity of incidents is proportionally higher. This is mainly caused by the difference in speeds of the merging vehicles and the highway traffic.
Another difficult factor in merging situations is the metering lights used on on-ramps to freeways and highways. Drivers must come to a complete stop directly before an upcoming merge and, therefore, the speed of the merging vehicles is even lower as compared to an unrestricted merge situation. On-ramps using metering lights often have multiple lanes, which must merge immediately after the merging lights with a relatively small time-gap, which adds another difficult factor to the merge scenario.
Current driver assistance systems inform the driver if there is a vehicle in the driver's blind spot, but do not provide recommendations or assistance to perform a specific maneuver. The conventional systems typically use visual lighting elements in the wing mirrors (mostly LED) on both sides of the vehicle, which light up if there is a vehicle detected by the radar sensors in the blind-spot area. There is currently no system, however, that detects an upcoming driving situation (e.g., on-ramp merge, lane change, etc.) automatically and supports the driver with additional assistance systems.